Shankar Vedantam
Shankar Vedantam is the host and creator of Hidden Brain. The Hidden Brain podcast receives more than three million downloads per week. The Hidden Brain radio show is distributed by NPR and featured on nearly 400 public radio stations around the United States.
Vedantam was NPR's social science correspondent between 2011 and 2020, and spent 10 years as a reporter at The Washington Post. From 2007 to 2009, he was also a columnist, and wrote the Department of Human Behavior column for the Post.
Vedantam and Hidden Brain have been recognized with the Edward R Murrow Award, and honors from the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, the International Society of Political Psychology, the Society of Professional Journalists, the National Association of Black Journalists, the Austen Riggs Center, the American Psychoanalytic Association, the Webby Awards, the Pennsylvania Associated Press Managing Editors, the South Asian Journalists Association, the Asian American Journalists Association, the Pennsylvania Newspaper Association, the American Public Health Association, the Templeton-Cambridge Fellowship on Science and Religion, and the Rosalynn Carter Mental Health Journalism Fellowship.
In 2009-2010, Vedantam served as a fellow at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University.
Vedantam is the author of the non-fiction book, The Hidden Brain: How our Unconscious Minds Elect Presidents, Control Markets, Wage Wars and Save Our Lives. The book, published in 2010, described how unconscious biases influence people. He is also co-author, with Bill Mesler, of the 2021 book Useful Delusions: The Power and Paradox of the Self-Deceiving Brain.
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Airbnb has come under fire in the last year following reports that hosts are less likely to rent to African-Americans compared to whites. New research looked at ways to address the discrimination. -
When you look at a photograph of someone, researchers say it's remarkably difficult to dislodge that first impression — even after we have had a chance to meet the person we initially saw in a photo. -
New social science research shows that women in the arts earn significantly less than men across the board. -
As the mayor of New York City, Rudy Giuliani was a proponent of a controversial policing philosophy that calls for police to go after small crimes in hopes of preventing bigger problems. -
U.S. politics have long been marked by disagreement and even rancor. But 2016 feels worse than usual. NPR's Hidden Brain podcast offers one explanation why, from deep in our psychological frameworks. -
Many immigrant groups faced prejudice and suspicion when they first arrived in the U.S. quickly turn around and exhibit the same kinds of prejudice and suspicions toward those who come after them. -
Economic disruption has been a big part of the political conversation. Free trade might be a net benefit to the U.S., but there are large areas of the country that bear the brunt of negative effects. -
Research collaborations often involve scientists from all over the world. A new study looks at plane ticket prices, and how they relate to the direction of science. -
Researchers found by telling people the risk of HIV is lower than they thought, they get people to act in safer ways. But when people think the risk is very high, they sometimes act less responsibly. -
This week on Hidden Brain, Shankar Vedantam explores how unconscious ideas about the family shape the way we think about politics.
